


More Shackles on a Bound Man

by fineandwittie



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Could be gen since this is basically how they interact anyway, Fix-it fic, Gen, M/M, could be slash because i think how they act anyway is slash, i am just going through all their interactions one by one and fixing them i think, references to slavery, s2 e3, whatever it's a choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29746188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineandwittie/pseuds/fineandwittie
Summary: A different way things could have gone during that conversation Alfred and Uhtred have in season 2, where Uhtred swears another oath
Relationships: Alfred the Great & Uhtred of Bebbanburg, Alfred the Great/Uhtred of Bebbanburg
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	More Shackles on a Bound Man

**Author's Note:**

> As always: unbeta'd and unproofread

“Firstly because I was able and secondly because it is no more than you deserve.” Alfred paused, his back still to Uhtred. 

Steapa stood, a silent hulking shadow over their conversation. Alfred could feel Steapa’s presence against his back like a shackle, preventing him from speaking as he would like. The moment stretched. 

Uhtred was here, once again, whole and hale and unbroken by his servitude. Thinner, certainly, with hair damaged by the elements and a new hunch to his shoulders, but unbowed. 

And Alfred had a choice. He had always had a choice, but he had not been presented with it quite so starkly as he was now. Uhtred had almost been taken from him, had almost been crushed and cast into the ocean like so much trash, had almost been broken. But he was not. He was here. He was alive. And he was well.

Discarding his plans, the threats he’d been prepared to issue, Alfred turned a little, enough to put Uhtred in his peripheral vision. “Steapa, leave us.”

“Lord.” Steapa bowed and left the room. Uhtred watched him go, confusion on his face, and some spark of fear in his eyes.

When Steapa shut the doors behind him, Alfred turned more fully and met Uhtred’s gaze. “Do you fear me, Uhtred?”

Uhtred opened his mouth immediately, a denial no doubt on the tip of his tongue, but he paused, tilting his head. Alfred waited, hardly breathing, for whatever condemnations or praise might roll off that insolent tongue. After a long moment, Uhtred blinked. “I…find that a difficult question, Lord. There are different kinds of fear, yes? As King, you could have my head this very moment, for no other than reason than your displeasure and so I should fear that. But I know you, Lord, and you almost never act without cause or reason.”

Uhtred broke their staring to glance at the candles on the table. “You have an impressive mind, Lord, which is often a thing to be feared. And yet, in combat, man to man, I would defeat you easily. I could overpower you right now and snap your neck with little effort. And yet, I could not.” He looked back at Alfred, a smile teasing at the corner of his mouth. “I fear a master who has little care for the thing he possesses and so I do fear you, Lord, because I know you. I know that you will do anything in pursuit of your goal, your England, even if that something is in contradiction with your Christian heart. I fear that even now, you make plans to bind me to you again, though I have only just been freed from bondage.”

Alfred exhaled what might, if he’d put more effort into it, been a laugh. His face softened as he watched Uhtred from hooded eyes. “Very clever. Indeed, I had just such a plan. Tell me, Uhtred. Why did you kill the Abbot?”

Uhtred tensed, eyes going sharp. “Do you actually wish to know or are you going to order some kind of punishment for it without caring the reason?”

Alfred blinked, suppressing a flinch. “I suppose that was deserved. I actually wish to know.”

“He was the man who had the vision that Guthred would be king. Except, he did not have any such vision. He mistook me for Guthred when I first arrived there. I believe that he faked the vision in order to place Guthred on the throne, because Guthred is an idiot and easily manipulated. It was he who was ultimately responsible for my enslavement.” Uhtred paused, a tight smile stretching his mouth, his eyes dark with rage. “But those are not the reason, though they should be good enough. The abbot was attempting to force Gisela to marry my uncle by proxy. She spoke not a single word of consent to the marriage at any point and yet he claimed that it was valid. None of the proper rituals were observed. When I took her from him, he…” Uhtred stopped. Alfred watched his hands fist and release. “So I killed him. I don’t know if I would have done it before my enslavement. I don’t know if I would do it now. But everything was…raw and I thirsted for blood. His or Guthred’s.”

Alfred nodded, wondering at Uhtred’s unusual forthrightness. “I see. Well, it seems perhaps that the man of God was not so Godly after all. I will take no action on the matter. You were Earl Ragnar’s charge at the time so the punishment would have been his, but…given the circumstances, I think it is better to let the matter rest. Especially as the slaying took place in Northumbria and not in Wessex.”

Uhtred exhaled, the tension slipping away and leaving him swaying. “Thank you, Lord.”

“Please, sit. You appear perhaps less recovered than you have me believe. Or than you would have yourself believe, possibly.” Alfred gestured to the chair against the wall behind Uhtred.

Uhtred sank into it, his hands trembling slightly, almost invisible but for how hard Alfred was looking. Alfred took the chair on the other side of the cabinet and dragged it outward so that they faced on another. 

“Uhtred, I should like you in my service once more. At my side and in my ear. My sword when I cannot myself wield a sword and a shield against the coming war.”

Uhtred frowned, hand closing hard around the arm of the chair. “War, Lord?”

Alfred nodded. “It will not come tomorrow, nor the next day. It mightn’t come next year or the year after, but make no mistake. War is coming. And when it does, I would have us ready.”

Uhtred examined Alfred’s face, searching for something which he did not seem to find. He dropped his gaze to the floor. “Lord, I will not swear an oath to you. I will not enslave myself again.” His voice was quiet, with an edge of hopeless to it that Alfred did not like.

“And that is why I will not ask you for one.” 

Uhtred inhaled sharply and looked up, eyes wide. “Lord?”

Alfred shook his head, a smile touch his mouth and warming his eyes. He reached out and wrapped his hand around Uhtred’s wrist. He turned the man’s hand over. They both looked around at the heavy callouses and thick scars that covered Uhtred’s palm. Rowing, Earl Ragnar has said, they’d have Uhtred in the bowels of a ship rowing. 

“I will not be another master who does this to you. If you receive scars for me, if you bare wounds because of me, I would have it be of your choosing. I want you with me and I ask for both your sword and your trust. In return, I will give you something that I have never offered before. Trust of my own. You have bled for me. Your son died so that mine lived. And now you have lost nearly a year of your life to slavery and abuse because of things that you did while protecting those in my service. Uhtred Ragnarson, Uhtred of Bebbenburg, you are a hero among men. You are a lord and an ealdorman of Wessex. You deserve, you have earned, both my respect and my trust.”

Uhtred’s eyes were wet and glossy when Alfred looked back up. Alfred’s words had shattered something in Uhtred’s eyes and Alfred wasn’t certain what it was. 

“Lord,” Uhtred’s voice was thick with emotion and a little unsteady. “My sword is yours. My shield is yours. It always has been. We have weathered much together, you and I. And I would always choose to weather the future at your shoulder. But before I could take a place here, I must…Ragnar and I must ride north.”

“Indeed, you must. I would have you go north to…put an end to Eric and Siegfried’s raiding, before you take your place here. I know that there is a task that you have set yourself as well, the vengeance that you seek on the man who killed Ragnar the fearless.” Alfred smiled at the surprise that rose on Uhtred’s face. “I know he is also in Northumbria. Kjartan, wasn’t it?”

Uhtred nodded, the movement jerky and uneven. “Yes. Kjartan murdered my parents and blamed me for their deaths. Ragnar and I will kill him.”

“Well, then. A Danish warlord dead seems like a victory for the Christians of the region, does it not? Go then. Go north with your brother and find this warlord. Put him to the sword. Remove the threat of Eric and Siegfried. And then return and take your place at my right hand. Together we will carve England out from the chaos.”

Uhtred nodded again, one sharp movement, before he stood. “I will, Lord.” He crossed the room as though to leave, but paused. “And, Alfred, thank you. I am grateful.”

Alfred was still attempting to steady his breathing when Uhtred disappeared through the door, shutting it behind him.


End file.
